#Every time Evil Wolverine says anything can we please have this instead

[completeoveranalysis]

[7]

10/10 

KISS HIM ON THE MOUTH

PERFECT RESPONSE

END OF CHAPTER

[henrylevesconte]

not to be evil but 50 for creamsicle dude

50- In the Afterlife

(Spoilers for Reservoir Dogs, language, and descriptions of wounds/violence) 

“I’m a cop, Larry.” Freddy chokes as his vision blurs, the second bullet burning a hole through his already injured stomach. He’s dying and no matter what words Larry says to calm him, he’s fucking dead when the cops finally get to him. 

Freddy had been painting the warehouse floor red for hours as the heist members bickered over what to do with him and now they were all dead except for White and Orange. Even if the LAPD bust through the door now and arrested an injured Mister White and managed to get Freddy to a hospital in time, he couldn’t live with himself. He couldn’t live with Larry, his Larry, believing they would serve jail time together, that he was right in killing Joe Cabot and Nice Guy Eddie. His soul was too heavy for him to die a liar.

The howl the older thief emits is the most heartbroken sound Freddy has ever heard and he sinks more into the older man’s lap, deflated and defeated. He can’t see him but he feels hot tears fall on his face from above. He tries in vain to grab onto his Larry, but his arms felt like jello, like he was trying to fight in a dream, punch underwater. He would be frustrated if he could feel anything at all besides the creeping coldness.

“I’m so sorry, oh Larry I’m so sorry.” Freddy chanted, over and over as he felt something cool press against his cheek. There was something happening in the distance but he could only hear Larry as he mourned for the person he thought he had fallen so deeply in love with. Freddy couldn’t blame him, he liked Mister Orange a hell of a lot better than the sad kid turned Cop Freddy Newandyke.

The younger man tried again, this time to tell him, to tell Larry his name like Larry did for him when the took the car but there was a loud sound outside that startled both men. The last sound Freddy heard before the world went entirely black was the sounds of his colleagues finally storming the building. Too little too late for him as he was another corpse in the ill-fated warehouse. Freddy Newandyke died a free man but an unhappy one, in the arms of the only person he had ever truly loved and the only man he had ever completely betrayed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Freddy wakes up after awhile, not sure where he is or what happened, vague images of the last scenes in the warehouse playing over in his mind as he tried to adjust his wary olive eyes. His hands quickly flew to his belly burying them under his tank top and feeling for what he was sure was two bullet holes only to find the smooth freckled untouched skin, just as it had been the morning before everything went to absolute shit. His hands slowly retracted, feeling his torso before he rubbed his eyes with balled fists until he could finally see he was laying in his brightly lit, shitty little LA apartment. The walls were the aqua blue he remembered begging his landlord to let him paint the place and ultimately won. He let out of a nervous laugh that threatened to turn into a sob if he didn’t keep himself together.

“How the hell am I here?” Freddy contemplated as he reached across his bedside table, retrieving a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. The young man pushed back his light brown hair back, noting the absence of sweat and pomade before fiddling with the lighter. “Mother fucker.” He seethed, pink lips wrapped around the cigarette as he tried desperately to get the thing to actually light.

Maybe he was in hell and this was a very minor inconvenience but part of a larger punishment? After all he deserved what was coming for him. He was a liar, a murderer, a thief. And all of it was for vanity and respect from men who saw his profession as subhuman anyways. Who was he really trying to impress; the LAPD who thought he was better off being a desk jockey and undercover fodder or the mob boss that said every slur under the sun with his brat and team of psychopaths? Freddy ended up like the psychopaths more than he was willing to admit. He ended up liking Mister White even more but he didn’t want to think about him.

The young man managed to get the lighter to do its job, enjoying the relief nicotine brought to his high strung nerves as he settled back down against his headboard. He ran a thumb over the broken lighter, looking at it a bit more now that he had calmed himself out of an existential panic. It looked so familiar but surely it wasn’t his, Freddy had a habit of misplacing every lighter he owned, always having to rely on someone else for a light.

That’s how he first really met Larry Dimmick, behind the club Joe and Eddie had invited him out to where he told the most riveting fucking story of 1992. He was sweating through his leather jacket, worried sick that he got any part of the commode story wrong and trying to take a break from being the cool dope peddler. White met him outside, cool as cool can be, in his Hawaiian shirt, half unbuttoned and inviting. Dark hair slicked back and styled like he was some sort of old Hollywood gangster.

“Hey, kid. Need a light?” Freddy swallowed down his nerves before leaning into the older man, cigarette between his lips as it takes a few tries and one curse to get Larry to light him one. The whole time, Freddy looks up at him from under his eye lashes, studying the firm and handsome face of the thief, justifying it as he would need to pick him out of a line up later. Tracing over every line and mark, and occasionally meeting whiskey brown eyes when they weren’t focused on the lighter.

“Thanks, man..” He said muffled between the cigarette and trying to keep himself cool. Larry lit himself one next before leaning up against the alleyway, one foot pressed to the bricks to keep his balance. This mystery man (at the time) was the coolest mother fucker in LA and Freddy was already screwed.

“Hell of a story you told back there. I know we can’t exchange names, but I’d like to buy you a drink....”

“Larry????” The memory faded just as it has begun as reality hit him like a ton of bricks. Freddy squirmed, falling out of bed just as quickly as he had gotten up. The cigarette nearly abandoned and burning a hole in his beige carpet. He quickly recovered it, snuffing it out in an ash tray and rolling back onto his feet. He reached the door, throwing it open only to find the Mister White standing in his kitchen, coffee mug cradled in his hands as he greeted him.

“About time you got up, kid. I thought you were gonna sleep all day.” There was no malice in his voice, which hurt the younger man even more than if Larry had lashed out at him. Instead, he was pulling out a chair for him at his wobbly little breakfast table and pouring Freddy fresh brewed coffee in his favorite mug (the one with Wolverine on it). It was domestic, just like it had been before the heist when they broke the rules time and time again to meet up in Orange’s apartment. They became fast friends and even faster lovers. White was in his bed three days after meeting in the bar and every night since. And Freddy had gotten so used to waking up to fresh coffee made by the thief who always woke up much earlier than him. This scene was pulled straight from the good times, before the failed diamond heist, the chase, the bullets...

Freddy stood in the door way like a frightened animal, unwilling to get any closer and clenching the lighter in his fist. The older man sighed deeply, annoyed already but trying a different approach to coax him forward.

“I’m not mad at you, Orange. Not now. But I need to talk to you, you at least owe me a conversation.” He did. He really owed him so much more and he hated hearing his alias. So Freddy settled into the kitchen, perching on his chair but pulling his legs up to his chest as he exchanged the lighter for the mug.

“Freddy. Freddy Newandyke.” He said, he had been so careful with his name, unlike Larry who came to him with his heart on his sleeve from the start. “Please call me that.” Larry frowned, digesting the information before shooting him a classic smile. That was the thing that killed him (well he was already dead..) the most, how accepting his Larry was.. If he still was his Larry.

“I never pictured you a Freddy but now that I know, it suits you. Kind of cute.” Larry pulled out his own chair and sat next to him, the younger man just now noticed that he was wearing his own pajamas, they were both as they were before everything went to shit. “Well Freddy, what the fuck was that all about huh?”

Freddy sighed, burning his tongue on his still too hot coffee before he began his full confession.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They talked and established three things over four pots of coffee and a few packs of cigarettes:

They were dead, Larry had shot Freddy and the LAPD had shot Larry for it. And they were in some form of purgatory, Larry was more into the idea of it being a different plane of existence while Freddy was sure they were in the biblical definition of purgatory.

Freddy was a cop, the one feeding the police information about the heist the whole time but he was remorseful about it.

They loved each other still despite what happened.

Larry held his hand, rubbing his knuckles with a calloused thumb while Freddy choked out the last of it. He was a mess, worked up and teary eyed with his free arm flailing for emphasis with every “I’m sorry, I fucked up, I don’t deserve you.”

The older man shook his head and pulled Freddy into his lap, cradling him like he was on the warehouse floor again but with less urgency. Mister White wrapped an arm around his waist and used the other to cup his cheek.

“You broke my fucking heart, kid.” Larry whispered into his temple before placing soft kisses along his hairline. Freddy shuttered at the tenderness he truly did not deserve, he clung instead to Larry for dear life as he continued to whisper to him, “But I killed you so I’d call that even.”

“I’m sorry, Larry. I’ll never not be sorry about this. I love you so much..” He whimpered before being silenced by Larry’s lips on his own. He had missed them so much after getting caught up in a whirlwind of events, it felt like he was finally home. Here in Larry Dimmick’s arms and with his lips on his. Freddy could have sworn he felt his heart beat again. It was Larry who broke it off to brush the hair from his lovers face.

“We’ve got time, and I love you so much, Freddy, I’m willing to give it another try.” Larry smiled at him like he was telling the fake commode story and Freddy’s soul felt more free than he had in ages. Maybe this was heaven after all.

[kurtty-drabbles]

Divine comedy au

N/A: This is not exactly serious nor is too dramatic. LK joins the X-men in a normal way, I know he´s all about evil things, but, the X-men suffer so much with bad writing that he wouldn´t need to do anything, instead, his plan is to build the empire and then destroyed(to him is funnier) and Zaorva also enter in the X-men in a normal way too. As Outer Gods they, LK and Zaorva never truly meet(aside from the meetings) so they didn´t recognize the other.

@djinmer4 @dannybagpipesarecalling @sailorstar9 @discordsworld @look-ma-no-hands336

#1 Is a sunny day at the institution when Kitty Pryde aka Shadowcat receive news that a new member will be joining the team, usually, this type of news wouldn´t warrant many reactions from Kitty, except how suddenly this all was.

Strange, she thought to herself, I´d not see anyone being recruited for this month.

“Miss Pryde” Paige shows up with teary eyes, while the woman is far from a little girl, every time she´s near Kitty she has no problem in acting like one, many people joke that Kitty has a big mommy aura and in moments like this Kitty has a great sense of humour. “Yes, child?”

“I had a nightmare” Paige confessed drying her tears and Kitty waits for the young woman to explain herself better as she clearly wants to. “It was a big snake that was vomiting more snakes and….someone was there laughing” Paige gets a hug and Kitty promised it was a dream, give an excellent excuse as she blames the latest movie where they used a CGI snake as a monster of the month. “Child, the snakes, in real life, only attack if provoke and I´d know you won´t ever fight with one” Paige nods. Kitty embrace Paige as she´s a child(some people do point out, sometimes, how is strange that Kitty has this effect, is almost like she really thinks she´s Paige´s mother)

Somehow, Kitty thinks her nightmare is a bit strange for a human. Humans fear snakes, that´s a given, but, in what mind someone would laugh at that?

#2 Kurt Wagner is a German mutant from Bavaria and has the ability to teleport, Scott and the others take an immediately like for the new welcome and Kitty is in the corner watching as people are sharing secrets so easily with him.

At the same times, the nightmares increase and Kitty notices how Piotr was acting odd, sleeping walking and speaking of his sister as she was dead…even through Yana is in the mansion safe and sound.

Paige´s nightmares get so violently that she was forced to go to Kitty´s room and cries, as she told the nightmares, are worse, now, the serpent king is laughing at her. “Please, I can´t handle this anymore” Paige is crying and kitty let her sleep in her room, the poor thing was so scared she never noticed how Kitty never sleeps.

This situation was odd and it gets odder when Ororo shows up sleeping walking and using her powers at full volume, thankfully, Kitty manages to wake Ororo up. “Is a protection charm,” she explained as Ororo asked what´s going. “Did I hurt anyone?” and Kitty asked, “No, of course not, people were awakened by the strong wind but no one is hurt”

Ororo is thankfully for that but asked. “I was never a sleeping walk before…what´s happened?” and Kitty stays with Dr McCoy long enough to fabricated good excuses and Beast itself shows up to console Storm and everything is alright, even Paige is managing to sleep in her own room without nightmares.

So…it really wasn´t a normal nightmare. She thought bemused.

Meanwhile, Wolverine´s corpse is being devoured by her little “bunnies” and Kitty can say the X-men don´t need this Wolverine as much they never need that Jean Grey. #3 Kurt Wagner is far too pleased as the X-men are exactly how he imagined and is impressed, how to make a real empire of the X-men and how to see it crumble. It´ll be glorious.

First, I need to see who will be the king. He thought amused, entering in the kitchen to eat something, maybe Scott? Yes, the man is cut out for that and won´t handle the pressure. He concludes mentally.

Entering in the kitchen with the satisfaction some of the X-men are having beautiful nightmares, not all of them(Paige and Storm are immune for some reason, but, it does not matter, they all will fall into his plans) and is surprised to see Kitty Pryde gazing upon him.

I´d not see her…where was she? Thought Kurt a bit perplexed and the man notices how he never really engage in a conversation with Kitty before, even though, she´s always watching(and he can´t watch her? This is far more interesting that the lack of nightmares of Ororo and Paige)

“Hello, Katzchen” Kurt can represent a good and kind man if needs and Kitty´s gaze should have changed, yet, she´s still gazing upon him as if wanting to see something more. That´s…interesting. “I´m here for a cup of water” true, even IT has to drink water(not a need per se, just a small pleasure he likes. This and drinking beer) “I couldn´t sleep, too excited for tomorrow and you? Nightmares?”

“NO!” her answer is too strong, too personal and Kurt is taken back, is not a way a human would behave (some have warned that Kitty is not 100% normal and do not mind what she's saying or do)

They gaze each other and his evil smiles is taking place of his mask. She´s interesting and IT likes that. “I head Ororo and Paige were having problems with nightmares and I think you help them,” Kitty nods and Kurt can tell she never blinks as her eyes are a beautiful tone of azure that Kurt never saw before(at least, not in a human) “I´m glad they have you as a friend”

Kurt speaks in a low tone. “ They told me you´re a strange witch, are you?”

Kitty didn´t flinch. “They told me how much they love you and I´m jealous,” that confession did take him off guard “ it did take me a while for them to truly accept me and you conquer their hearts in one day, that´s impressive,” Kurt, for some reason, is blushing at this praise “ yet, this means nothing to me as I tend to like the X-men and I´d keep an eye on them…I´d hope the nightmares end now”

Kurt is in silence until he speaks again. “bold words, Katzchen, can you really back it up?”

Kitty´s face is now inches from his. “Actually, the question you should ask here is: Is it worthy piss Kitty Pryde off?”

And she leaves and Kurt has a favourite X-men now.

#4

Bobby Drake was the sole reason why Rogue and Kitty did take a while for being friends, so, when Kitty spots, by accident, Bobby reading “the book of life” a book of her cult with her rules and it makes Kitty reevaluate Iceman.

Oh, maybe he´s not a douchebag as I thought, Kitty thought to herself.

“Bobby? What are you reading?” a perfect and human question to make and Kitty can count on her fingers the times she messes this one up. “The book of life is a book about the outer god of creation, Zaorva”

Kitty nods pleased as Bobby repeats her 3 golden directives’ and even like how he used the Galaxy Hitcher book to concluded her own book, and Kitty is impressed. “And what you take from this? Are you planning to join Zaorva´s cult? Paige and Ororo are there as well” Rogue too, she mentally adds, but even she can know how is not good to mention Rogue now.

“Well, is a good cult, I suppose, even if all cults are bad” Kitty frowns at him, but, can see his logic(humans leading cults about themselves always end in disaster) “but, There´s Zaorva and let me tell you, she´s a nice MILF, the Goodness of MILFS”

Kitty´s eyebrows twitch as her mask is cracking for a moment, in the end, no one in the mansion got a nightmare, except Bobby, but Kitty knows fully well the reason. Kurt for once is confused but did enjoy Bobby´s nightmares. #5 Kurt Wagner spot Rogue talking on her phone, once she´s over talking with her mother, Kurt did ask something. “Hey, is Kitty single?” Kurt knows about the love triangle and is a nice way to inject a bit of pain even if is in a minimum dose.

“Well, she did was with that Japanese dude” Rogue makes a face and now in a confessional tone adds “Look, don´t tell anyone I told you this ok?” Kurt nods “when we were in Japan, there´s this Japanese man who was with us…and I swear he looks like a male Japanese version of Kitty. The people in the area seem to know who that man was…but no one told us anything, hell, not even Kitty and Ororo did ask but nothing…the odd part, the Japanese man, aside from never give us a name(and the fact people refuse to give his name) was treat like he was a god…and the same courtesy was applied to Kitty and only them” Rogue concludes and asked again to Kurt to not reveal that to anyone.

“I promise” and Kurt is thinking about this, what is Kitty up to? Is she dating a Japanese´s deity?NO, if that´s the case she would stay in Japan(he knows a thing or two about them and knows they don´t like long-distance relationships) then…there´s two last options, one, she´s HER Herald or two, she´s HER.

Well, I´d have patience, if she wants to show herself to me she´ll. Kurt thought.

#6 The Hellfire obey all the commands of one force and Kitty could hardly care, however, the Hellfire was instructed to captured Kitty and take information out of her, of course, Kitty is not even going to pretend to be scared.

As she looks at the corpses of Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw and Selene who all have their eyes burned and fume in their mouths, Kitty did catch a name in their minds and is ready to take action.

The X-men arrives to save Kitty and the woman has enough sense to fake, rather well, how she´s happy to see them and how the Hellfire was insane, they look at the defeated enemies and Kitty fabricated a lie saying their ego went insane. “Oh, they all wanted to be the leader and that´s the hubris talk, poor humans” Kitty speaks and no one notices how odd that is.

Kurt intervenes. “But, didn´t they vote for Emma to be their leader?” Kurt asked not caring their toys are broken, he has much better toys and something far better in the mansion that anything Hellfire could ever hope for.

Kitty is quick in her answer. “Oh, everyone wants to be the Pharaoh, Kurt, and that´s more than enough to kill” she concludes and Kurt laughs amused, no one else thought that was funny, well, Kitty certainly appreciates someone else likes her sense of humour.

#7 Kitty had enough of this situation, the hellfire´s death was one thing, but, the situation on the US is far too chaotic to be human-made(not that the humans can´t be chaotic) and how suddenly there´s this talk about making the X-men the rulers of earth, well, of the US and how this can affect other countries is too chaotic and too strange to be human.

Only Kurt is amused and applauding the broadcast interview as Cyclops is decreet that Iron Man will be punished for his crimes against humanity. “I had enough of this!” Kitty shouts as her eyes are full azure.

She holds his face with her hands and looks deeply into his golden eyes. “I´ll show you how I truly look” and one second later the intensity of the moment is broken by Kitty blushing and look amused. “Oh my! I had no idea you are here, I´m sorry”

Kurt is too amused and looks at her hands on his face softly. “Don´t be, I didn´t recognize you too, and your tentacles are beautiful” This prompts Kitty to blush and smiles prettily now, as her mask is cracking just like IT. “Me? Your tentacles are something else, I couldn´t ever recreate such beauty” Kitty explained. “The crawling god of chaos is truly something else,” and Kurt is palming her face gently. “I´m a big fan of your work, Zaorva, I even went to Japan to see your cult, I like the name of your mask there, very fitting” and Zaorva thank him. Both are talking and ignoring the TV news saying Ironman will be sentenced to death. Now, the X-men have 2 outer gods.

[completeoveranalysis]

~

Warning! This post contains spoilers up to chapter 170 of Tsubasa (and Chapter 71 of xxxHolic). Please skip this if you have not read that far.

Please also make no comments about what happens after that point in either manga.

~

OK SO HERE IS SPOOKY KUROFAI MARRIAGE PORTRAIT

The splash text reads: Shed blood and tears, without forgetting them, turn them into an existence.

Here is a link to my original post if you need the full context.

But here is the thing I said that just made me want to scream here in 2021, specifically in regards to that splash text:

"Incredibly motivating. It’s like the optimistic view of how things are when things are tough. The tough times are unavoidable a lot of the time, but you can and will get through them. You just have to make the choice to pick up the pieces and use them to construct a new future - which is never easy, but it’s the only way forward. For the dads, it’s both their past and their future. Kurogane has already gone through this; his life shattered and he used the pieces to forge a new identity and found new things to live for. For Fai, this is something he still needs to work on. He’s so used to running from his tragedy that he hasn’t yet figured out who he is beyond it. The “without forgetting them” is sort of a call out for him in that respect. You can’t grow by pretending they didn’t happen, or by pretending you’re a different person. Once he’s faced the pain and accepted that he’s alive and can continue living in a way that can make himself and others happy, then he’ll finally be moving forward."

IN WHICH.

LIKE.

I have no idea how anyone even reads this liveblog armed with knowledge of what happens next because APPARENTLY I JUST SAY THINGS that are VASTLY UNJUST and now I wilt away with the memory of what I thought of Fai back then.

I don't mean to give myself any undue credit here - I predicted none of Fai’s backstory. I had something completely different in mind when writing this, entirely based around the knowledge of Fai fleeing from Ashura with no context whatsoever about who Fai really was.

When you know where Fai came from? Oh my god.

Oh my god.

The words just toss my intended meaning out the window and dance around with the actual truth right in your face. Especially the “pretending you’re a different person” bit - I could never have predicted that Fai was using his brother’s namesake both as a way to eliminate himself from the world and to devote his life towards resurrecting his brother in his place. But HOT DAMN do these words ice skate in all the correct patterns without any knowledge of what the heck they could possibly mean in the end.

Also I'm in physical pain from the phrase: “without forgetting them” is sort of a call out for him in that respect." I know that past!me was thinking purely about Fai running away from confrontation with Ashura and pretending that he was fine and that everything was fine and that he could stay away from it all as long as possible. Things I did not know: That Fai's memories had been deliberately changed by two separate people to control the direction of his life. "Without forgetting them" is NOT a callout for Fai - Fai had no choice in that whatsoever (but they could still be a callout for ME for forgetting any of this plotline had ever happened oh my god). Fai was only ever running from Ashura with good intentions (ie, to NOT murder someone), and there was no way he could have known that his past had been rewritten to such a massive degree that it shaped the core of his personality for his entire life. And just as the splash text implies, it's only when he gets the CORRECT memories back that he can use them to forge a healthier and more accurate life moving forward.

A call out for Fai. Imagine. Past!me has so much to answer for.

I also want to revisit the bit where I said “once he’s faced the pain and accepted that he’s alive he can continue living in a way that can make himself and others happy, then he’ll finally be moving forward”, because this comes off entirely flippant now that I’m looking back on it.

My expectation for Fai’s potential trauma was somehow barely a tenth of what it really was in the end. And like, the idea I was getting at? Technically correct! But also only correct on the surface level. Fai didn’t need to just “confront his problems”. He needed to be completely stripped of the version of himself he had constructed from his false memories, worn down to the very core through reliving the worst parts of his life - and then shown how he was wrong about them. He was lied to his entire life, and so the goals he based his life around were aimed toward an abstracted version of reality. He was never going to be able to resurrect his brother, but he never could have known that without knowing that Ashura and Evil Wolverine had manipulated him and his memories every step of the way.

It's only when he can decipher this for himself that he can course correct - and it was only in taking the Original Fai completely out of the equation that Our Fai could finally begin to comprehend the idea of living for himself, and others, instead for fixing a mistake he never actually made in the first place.

So, yeah. “Once he’s faced the pain (of his past) and accepted that HE’S alive (and he’s allowed to be, because he never killed his brother) he can continue living in a way that can make himself and others happy” IS ACTUALLY ACCIDENTALLY CORRECT IN THE END.

I also want to point out that in the initial liveblog I never really discussed how Fai’s expression was relevant to this image, because I didn’t know exactly.

He’s smiling.

It's a small, gentle smile, but CLAMP really draw attention to it with the way he's looking off centre. Kurogane looks directly at the camera, but he's off centre - Fai is in the middle of the frame and he's vaguely looking elsewhere, head tilted in the wrong direction, as if he were looking towards Kurogane but seeing something else entirely.

The image itself was part of a series of splash pages where CLAMP were depicting the current state of the relationships between all of the main cast throughout the Infinity Arc (and it was glorious) and while I absolutely caught the fact that the relationship between Fai and Kurogane was intimate but strained, I didn’t know the context of Fai’s smile. His backstory shows us that Fai smiles as a way to make other people happy, because deep down he thinks this is the only possible value he can bring them - a smile is his only way of improving the world for the people around him, and his smile is the only thing he’s worth.

Here in the image Fai is partially draped over Kurogane but his distant look shows that he isn’t fully committed to the scenario - because before Seresu he could never be. As much as he liked Kurogane and allowed himself to get close to him, it was always always with the intention of him trading his life away for his brother’s at the end of the day. This is what caused the tension between them in the first place - when Kurogane made choices in Fai’s stead to keep him alive (in Acid Tokyo), he threatened Fai’s chance to trade his life for his brother’s, and so Fai distanced himself from Kurogane. Even if they fixed what they had between them, anything he had going with Kurogane could only ever be temporary until Fai could trade places with the real Fai.

And so Fai smiles - because any happiness he can give Kurogane and the others is all he’ll ever be worth. It's a temporary happiness that was never supposed to last or even exist in the first place.

And it’s not until we get OUT of Seresu that Fai finally has the opportunity to build himself from the ground up and start living for himself. For his own happiness and those around him.

And finally commit to the idea of being able to (and being WORTHY OF) making Kurogane happy in the long term.

Which is where we then get the punching scene in Nihon. And it’s perfect.

But OH BOY did past!me say some things that sounded correct but were utterly and completely wrong at every level.